Dudley Stop Smoking Service

News

The Dudley Stop Smoking Service backs plans to remove branding from cigarette packets

April 19, 2012

The Dudley Stop Smoking Service today welcomed the government’s consultation plans to remove branding from cigarette packs sold in England, which were recently announced by Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley.

With research suggesting that attractive packaging entices smokers to buy cigarettes the Dudley Stop Smoking Service believes plain packaging will reduce the attractiveness of tobacco branding and make packs less appealing, especially to young people. The service also believes plain packs will strengthen the impact of health warnings and prevent the use of misleading colours, which create false beliefs that some cigarettes are less harmful.

Ruth Olding, Tobacco Control Programme Manager said:

“As tobacco specialists we know the devastating effects of tobacco addiction, and therefore we support the moves to reduce the number of people, especially young people, taking up this deadly habit. We therefore encourage everyone in the borough to support standardised packaging on the sale of all tobacco products”

With an estimated 340,000 children in England under the age of 16 who have never smoked before trying cigarettes and 200,000 children and young people starting to smoke regularly every year, the Dudley Stop Smoking Service has already been proactive in forming a partnership with Dudley Youth Service and Creative Health Community Interest (CIC) and have formed ‘Dudley Kick Ash’, an advocacy project that encourages young people to be smokefree, and participate in activities in smokefree environments.

Prior to Andrew Lansley’s announcement the Kick Ash programme had already invited young people to get involved in a ‘Plain Packs Protect’ project with the aim of providing opportunities for them to explore their ideas about the issues and to create resources in support of the plain packaging campaign.

As a result of their work, the Dudley group of young people have been invited by ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) to attend the Houses of Parliament on 26th April. This visit will coincide with the British American Tobacco Annual General Meeting and the group also plan to campaign on this day to further spread the message that ‘plain packs protect’